Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. Many names have been given to Varanasi, though its recently revived official appellation is mentioned in the Mahabharata and in the Jataka tales of Buddhism. It probably derives from the two rivers that flank the city, the Varana to the north and the Asi to the south.. Many still use the anglicized forms of Banaras or Benares, while pilgrims refer to Kash, first used three thousand years ago to describe the kingdom and the city outside which the Buddha preached his first sermon; the "City of Light" is also called Kashika, "the shining one", referring to the light of Shiva. Another epithet, Avimukta, meaning "Never Forsaken", refers to the city that Shiva never deserted, or that one should never leave. Further alternatives include Anandavana, the "forest of bliss", and Rudravasa, the place where Shiva (Rudra) resides.

Varanasi’s associations with Shiva extend to the beginning of time: legends relate how, after his marriage to Parvati, Shiva left his Himalyan abode and came to reside in Kashi with all the gods in attendance. Temporarily banished during the rule of the great king Divodasa, Shiva sent Brahma and Vishnu as his emissaries, but ultimately returned to his rightful abode protected by his loyal attendants Kalabhairav and Dandapani. Over 350 gods and goddesses, including a protective ring of Ganeshaa form a mandala or sacred pattern with Shiva Vishwanatha at its centre.

Each name carries an additional meaning in terms of the sacred symbolism of the city, with each defining aprogressively decreasing arc starting and ending on the west bank of the Ganges. While the boundary of Kashi is delimited by the circular Panchakroshi Road, Varanasi is the main city, extending from Asi Ghat and circling around to the confluence of the Ganges and the Varana. Yet a smaller area, defined as Avimukta, starts at Kedara Ghat in the south and ends at Trilochana Ghat. Most important of all is Antargriha, the "Inner Sanctum" around the Vishwanatha Temple, which encompasses Dashashwamedha Ghat, Surya Kund, the lingam of Bharabhuta, and Manikarnika Ghat. Another, later, interpretation suggests three sectors of khandas in the form of Shiva’s trident, each centered around a temple – Omkara to the north, Vishvanatha in the centre and Kendra to the south.

A city which, since it is both an exalted place of pilgrimage and an idealize centre of faith, has been likened to Jerusalem and Mecca.According to the historians, the city was founded some ten centuries before the birth of Christ. The city is mentioned in Holy Scriptures like 'Vamana Purana', Buddhist texts and in the epic 'Mahabharata'.Mark Twain,the English author and litterateur,who was enthralled by the legend and sanctity of Banaras,once wrote:"Banaras is older than history,older than tradition,older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together."

Varanasi's prominence in Hindu mythology is virtually unrivalled. For the devout Hindu the city has always had a special place, besides being a pilgrimage centre,it is considered especially auspicious to die here, ensuring an instant route to heaven.The revered and ancient city Varanasi is the religious centre of the world of Hindus. A city where the past and present, eternity and continuity co-exist.

The city of Banaras is situated on the west bank of the holiest of all Indian rivers, the Ganga or Ganges. The relationship between the sacred river and the city is the essence of Varanasi - 'the land of sacred light'. The Ganga is believed to have flown from heaven to wash away the worldly sins of the human race.of mortal's .The life and activities in the city centre around the holy river. Life on the banks of the Ganga begins before dawn when thousands of pilgrims - men, women and children - come down to the river to wait for the rising sun when immersion in the sacred river will cleanse them of their sufferings and wash their sins away.

Along the water's edge, there are the burning ghats. The most sacred one is Manikarnika, associated with Goddess Parvati, Lord Shiva's wife. The major shrine is the Vishwanath Temple the abode of Lord Shiva, the most important of the trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara, the Lords of this universe. Around this temple evolved the spiritual identity of Varanasi .The holy city within Banaras is thus called, Kashi, the luminous one or the city of the light. 

It is beside the holy waters of the Ganga that the activities for which Banaras is held sacred are performed. Everyday thousands of residents and pilgrims bathe, offer prayers to the elements, to the rising sun, and to their dead ancestors who have been carried away by these waters. What draws people to the river is an ingrained belief that these waters can absolve the sins of many generations. 

Everyone has their own way of celebrating the ritual contact with the holy Ganga: some bathe; other dip themselves entirely into the water once, thrice or any number of times; some drink the water; other make water offerings to the sun; while others fill their pots with holy water to take back to their homes to perform rituals and purification.The offerings to the sacred waters vary. Pilgrims give flowers, fruits, lamps and their respectful prayers. On festival days and religious occasions the riverside is thick with their colorful bobbing up and down on the waters.

The land around Banaras is also held sacred since Shiva is believed to have lived here.There are thousands of temples at Benaras dedicated to different gods and goddesses, particularly to the deities of good fortune and prosperity-and to the sun and the planets. The most important are those that honor the diverse manifestations and attributes of Shiva.The major shrine at Banaras is the Vishvanatha Temple, devoted to Shiva, the Lord of the Universe. 

The appearance of the pillar of light is said to have occurred at the site of Vishvanatha Temple. The holy city within Banaras is thus called Kashi "The Luminous One' or the 'City of Light'. Light in Hindu philosophy has great meaning for it exemplifies the wisdom that destroys the darkness of ignorance. Sin and evil are understood to be the acts of ignorance. When wisdom is acquired, evil will disappear. Sin cannot be washed away by water or prayer but only by wisdom. Immorality is also reached through wisdom and understanding. So the City of Light is the City of Eternal Wisdom as well. To die in the city beside the river of life is to die with a promise of redemption, a promise to be liberated from the endless cycle of life and death and reincarnation, and to gain moksha or eternal absolution. So for centuries thousands of people have come to Banaras to die and thousands have brought the ashes of the dead here to immerse them in the holy waters.

Banaras has always been associated with philosophy and wisdom. A place of learning for many years, the Banaras Hindu University carries on this tradition. The University campus, to the south of the city, was built at the beginning of this century. Pundit Madan Mohan Malviya was instrumental in founding it. On campus is the Bharat Kala Bhavan Museum, which originated from the private collection of Rai Krishnadasa. 

The Banaras region was administered by Hindu rulers for several hundred years until the 17th century, when it fell into the hands of the Mughals. As was the practice many buildings of the previous rulers and the religious structures of the Hindu and Buddhists were demolished during the wars of the conquest. 

In Banaras we find many places where a temple once stood and where now mosque or some other structure stands. However, there is a little known farman, or royal decree, in the Bharat Kala Bhavan museum, which claims that Aurangzeb, the last great Mughal ruler, ordered his administrators to abstain from destroying any more temples. In succeeding years as Banaras continued to grow, the temples that were destroyed, were rebuilt or relocated.

Since Banaras is a pilgrimage centre, revered and honored throughout India, pilgrims come from all parts of the country to visit it. Some travel 2,000 kilometers to bathe in the Ganga and to honor their dead. Earlier pilgrims used to walk to Banaras on foot, and along the way visited other pilgrimages.The antiquity of Banaras is known not just by the archeological remains but by the diverse and varied literature of India

The inflow of pilgrims developed Banaras as a trade centre. Besides traders, crafts people also settled in Banaras. Today the city is renowned for its silk weavers, who prepare the finest types of woven silk fabrics. A Banaras silk sari or shawl is traditionally a single colored textile with motifs and patterns woven in gold or silver threads. The technique is intricate, the procedure complex and demands great expertise .As the warp and the weft are interwoven on the loom, small ,often minute shuttles with gold thread are introduced to form the motif. When the design of the motif is completed, a knot is made and the gold thread cut. The weaving continues until the next design. The smaller the motif or the more intricate the design, the more complex the weaving skills required. 

Silk weaving in Banaras is a cottage industry and in many areas of the city, especially the Muslim quarters, one can see looms at work all day . Entire families are involved, Children often pick up the art from the elders at an early age. There are shops in Banaras, and throughout India, that sell these fine silk fabrics

UP Tourism Accommodation 
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River Front ( Ghats)
The great river banks at Varanasi, built high with eighteenth and nineteenth-century pavilions and palaces, temples and terraces, are lined with an endless chain of stone steps – the ghats – progressing along the whole of the waterfront, altering in appearance with the dramatic seasonal fluctuations of the river level. Each of the hundred ghats, big and small, is marked by a lingam, and occupies its own special place in the religious geography of the city. Some have crumbled over the years, others continue to thrive, with early-morning bathers, brahmin priests offering puja, and people practicing meditation and yoga. Hindus puja, and people practicing meditation and yoga. Hindus regard the Ganges as amrita, the elixir of life, which brings purity to the living and salvation to the dead; sceptical outsiders tend to focus on all-persuasive and extreme lack of hygiene. Ashes to the dead, emissions from open drains and the left-overs from religious rites float by the devout as they go about their bathing and ceremonial cleansing.

For centuries, pilgrims have traced the perimeter of the city by a ritual circumambulation , paying homage to shrines on the way. Among the most popular routes is the Panchatirthi Yatra, which takes in the Pancha, (five) Trithi (crossing) of Asi, Dashashwamedha, Adi Keshva, Panchganga and finally Manikarnika. To gain merit or appease the gods, the devotee, accompanied by a panda (priest), recites a sankalpa (statement of intent) and performs a ritual at each stage of the journey. For the casual visitor, however the easiest way to see the is to follow a south-north sequence either by boat or on foot.

Asi Ghat to Kedara Ghat
At the clay-banked Asi Ghat, the southernmost in the sacred city, at the confluence of the Asi and the Ganges, pilgrims bathe prior to worshipping at a huge lingam under a peepal tree. Another lingam visited is that of Asisangameshvara, the "Lord of the Confluence of the Asi", in a small marble temple just off the ghat. Traditionally, pilgrims continued to Lolarka Kund, the Trembling Sun", a rectangular tank fifteen metres blow ground level, approached by steep steps. Now almost abandoned, except during the Lolarka Mela fair (Aug/Sept), when thousands come to propitiate the gods and pray for the birth of a son, Lolarka Kund is among Varanasi’s earliest sites, one of only two remaining Sun sites linked with the origins of Hinduism. Equated with the twelve adityas or divisions of the sun, which predate the great deities of Modern Hinduism, it was attracting bathers in the days of the buddha.

Much of the adjacent Tulsi Ghat – originally Lolarka Ghat, but renamed in the honour of the poet Tulsidas, who lived nearby in the sixteenth century – has crumbled. Continuing north, above Shivala Ghat, hanuman Ghat is the site of a new temple built by the ghat’s large south Indian community. Considered by many to be the birth place of the fifteenth-century Vaishnavite saint Vallabha, who was instrumental in in the resurgence of the worship of Krishna, the ghat also features a striking image of Ruru, the dog Bhairava, a ferocious and early form of Shiva.

Named for a legendary king said to have almost lost everything in a fit of self-abnegation, Harishchandra Ghat, one of the Varanasi’s two cremation of burning ghats, is easily recognizable from the smoke of its funeral pyres.

Further north, the busy Kendra Ghat is ignored by pilgrims on the Panchatirthi Yatra. Above its steps, a red-and-white-striped temple houses the Kedareshvara lingam, an outcrop of black rock shot through with a vein of white. Mythologically related to Kedarnath in the Himalayas, Kedara and its ghat become a hive of activity during the sacred month of Sravana (July/Aug), the month of the rains.

Gyanvapi Mosque
The Gyanvapi Mosque was raised by Aurangzeb near the present Vishwanath Temple or the Golden Temple. 

Bharat Mata
About 3km west of Godaulia, outside the old city, the modern temple of Bharat Mata(Mother India), inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi, is unusual in that it has a huge relief map in marble of the whole of the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan plateau, with mountains, rivers and the holy tirthas all clearly visible. Pilgrims circumambulate the map before viewing it in its entirety from the second floor. The temple can be reached by rickshaw from Godaulia for around Rs7.

Durga Temple
The nineteenth-century Durga Temple - stained red with ochre, and known among foreign travellers as the Monkey Temple, thanks to the aggressive and irritable monkeys that occupy every nook and cranny - stands within a walled enclosure 8km southof Godaulia, not far from Asi Ghat It was built in a common north Indian style, with an ornate shikhara, consisting of five segments symbolizing the elements, and supported by finely carved columns. The whole ensemble is best seen from across Durga Kund, the adjoining tank. Permeated by a stark primeval atmosphere, it is devoted to Durga, the tertitying aspect of Shiva's consort, Parvati, and the embodiment of shakti or female power. In contrast to the benevolent Annapurna, Durga, the unassailable destroyer of demons, clad in red and riding a tiger, is fully armed with Shiva's trident, Vishnu's discus and a sword. A forked stake in the courtyard is used during festivals to behead sacrificial goats, in an early or pre-Hindu form of worship which has now generally been replaced by a symbolic mark in vermilion. 

Non-Hindus are admitted to the courtyard, but not the inner sanctum, of the Durga temple, but access to the Tulsi Manas Temple alongside is unrestricted (daily 5am-noon & 3pm-midnight). Built in 1964 of whitestreiked marble, its walls are inscribed with verses by the poet and author of the Ramcharitmanas, the Hindi equivalent of the great Sanskrit epic Ramayana. On the second floor, moving images bring to life episodes from the classics.Commonly called the ‘Monkey temple’, it was built in the 18th century. 

Tulsi Manas Temple
Constructed by a family of Varanasi, this modern temple is dedicated to Lord Rama. . It is situated at the place where Tulsidas, the great medieval seer, lived and wrote the great epic " Shri Ramcharitmanas", which narrates the life of Lord Rama, the hero of the Ramayana. Verses from Tulsidas’s epic are inscribed on the walls.

Bharat Kala Bhawan (Banaras Hindu University)
A short rickshaw ride from the Durga temple is the Banaras Hindu University, one of the oldest educational centres in India. Founded by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya as a centre for the study of Indian art, culture, music and Sanskrit. Within the campus is the Bharat Kala Bhawan, a museum which houses one of the finest collection of Mughal miniature paintings and brocade textiles. Open 10.30 A.M. to 4.30 P.M.
Closed on University holidays.the Bharat Kala Bhavan museum (daily except Sun; llam-4.3Opm, May & June 7.30am-12.30pm; Rs5, RslO camera) has a fabulous collection of miniature paintings, sculpture, contemporary art and bronzes. Dedicated to the city of Varanasi, a gallery with a running nineteenth century map has a display of the recent Raj Ghat excavations and old etchings of the city. Along with Buddhist and Hindu sculpture and Moghul glass, galleries are devoted to foreign artists who found inspiration in India, such as Nicholas Roerich and Alice Boner. Jamini Roy, the Bengali renaissance painter so influenced by folk art, is also well represented.

Bharat Kala Bhavan forms part of BNU, the campus of which also holds the New Vishwanatha Temple (daily 4am-noon & 1-9pm), distinguished by its lofty white marble shikhara. The brainchild of Pandit Malaviya, founder of the university and a great believer in an egalitarian and casteless Hindu revival, it was built by the Birias, a wealthy Marwari industrial family. Although supposedly modelled on the original temple destroyed by Aurangzeb, the building displays characteristics of the new wave of temple architecture, amalgamating influences from various parts of India with a garish interior. Tea shops, flower sellers and other vendors in the small market outside the gates cater for a continuous flow of visitors.

New Vishwanth Temple
Situated in the premises of Banaras Hindu University, a modern place of worship planned by Pandit Malviya and built by the Birlas. Open to all, irrespective of caste or creed.

Alamgir Mosque
An amalgamation of Hindu - Muslim religious sentiments, this mosque is also known as "Beni Madhav Ka Darera". 

Ram Nagar Fort And Museum 
The residence of the Maharajali of Varanasi, Ramnagar Fort, looks down upon the Ganges not far south of the Asi Ghat. The best views of the fortifications - especially impressive in late afternoon - are to be had from the other side of the river, which is reached by a road heading south from the BHU area and over a rickety pontoon bridge. During the monsoon the bridge is dismaniled and replaced by a ferry, still preferable to the long main road that crosses the main Malaviya bridge in the north before heading down the eastern bank of the river.

Inside, the fort bears testimony to the wealth of the Maharajah and his continuing influence. A dusty and poorly kept museum (daily 9am-noon & 2-Spin; Rs3) provides glimpses of a decadent past: horse-drawn carriages, old motor cars, palanquins, gilded and ornate silver howdahs (elephant seats), hookaha, costumes and old silk in a sorry state are all part of the collection, along with an armoury, a collection of minute ivory carvings, an astronomical clock and hunting trophies. Some visitors have reported having tea with the affable Maliarajah after chance encounters.

Across the courtyard, a section is devoted to the Ram Ula procession and festivities, had during Dussehra (Oct). Varanasi is renowned for its Rain Lila, during which episodes from the Ramayana are re-enacted throughout the city and the Maharajali sponsors three weeks of elaborate celebrations.

A 17th - century fort, Ram Nagar is the home of the Maharaja of Banaras,Personal collection of the Royal Family housed in the Ramnagar Museum The museum’s collection includes of interesting vintage silver and brocade palanquins, howdahs, a replica of the royal bed and an armoury of swords and guns. (open 10 AM. to 5 PM) Ramnagar is also very famous for its unique Ram Lila.Museum entry fee for Rs 4 per head

The Kashi Vishwanath Temple
Also known as the Golden Temple, it is dedicated to Lord Shiva, the presiding deity of the city. Varanasi is said to be the point at which the first jyotirlinga, the fiery pillar of light by which Shiva manifested his supremacy over other gods, broke through the earth’s crust and flared towards the heavens. More than the Ghats and even the Ganga, the Shivalinga installed in the temple remains the devotional focus of Varanasi. Entry restricted for foreigner

Other places of interest at Varanasi include Bharat Mata Temple, Annapurna Temple, Manmandir, Sankat Mochan Temple etc.